It is a big day in Indian cricket today as the new era of the Men in Blue has started in T20I cricket with the squad announcement for Sri Lanka tour. Legends Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja retired from the shortest format of the game after the T20 World Cup, while the head coach Rahul Dravid also bid goodbye to the team.
New coach Gautam Gambhir has taken over now, with the Sri Lanka tour being his first. There was a lot of buzz about who will be the next captain in T20Is after Rohit Sharma. Now, it has been announced that Suryakumar Yadav will be the captain in T20I cricket, with Shubman Gill being his deputy.
Here is the Indian T20I squad for the series against Sri Lanka:
Suryakumar Yadav (C), Ꮪhubman Gill (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rinku Singh, Riyan Parag, Rishabh Pant (WK), Sanju Samson (WK), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohd. Siraj.
The squad looks solid on paper, but here are a couple of players who were unlucky to miss out on the team.
1. Yuzvendra Chahal deserved to play against Sri Lanka
Yuzvendra Chahal has been enormously successful in the T20 format of cricket. He has done a phenomenal job for Rajasthan Royals in recent IPL seasons. In fact, he was also picked in the main squad for the 2024 T20 World Cup.
While Chahal did not play any matches in the T20 World Cup, he has not been selected for the Sri Lanka series now. Ravi Bishnoi has made the cut ahead of him. It looks like coach Gautam Gambhir wants to back Bishnoi, who was a draft pick by LSG in IPL 2022 as well.
2. Abhishek Sharma
It is rare to see a new player getting dropped even after he scored a century in the previous series, that too in the T20I format. However, the same has happened with Abhishek Sharma, who smacked a magnificent ton in his debut series against Zimbabwe.
With Yashasvi Jaiswal performing brilliantly as well, it looks like the team management wants to back Gill and Jaiswal as openers.
